Melissa came home around 4:00 PM last Thursday and after several hours of sleep in her own bed she was able to wiggle her fingers.  This, by all accounts, was a good sign.  While her surgery was a success, and you can check out the X Rays, her hospital stay was a disaster.  I unfortunately did not stay the night with her and found out the next day how bad the situation had been.  Julie was also there throughout the day on Thursday to witness parts of the disturbing situation.  The full story will have to wait until Melissa is feeling better, as we all know she is the better story teller. For now, we do recommend the emergency room at Seton Southwest Hospital, but we do not recommend the staff, nurses, or an overnight stay there.

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Melissa is out of surgery and is recovering in the “Patient Care Area”. The operation went really well and everything should go as planned for the recovery. She’s now got a piece of metal and eleven screws in her arm.

The X-Rays today confirmed a definite need for surgery, but unfortunately an emergency came up with Melissa’s orthopedic surgeon…  So, she won’t be going in for surgery until 10:30 am on Wednesday.  In meantime, she gets an increased dosage of painkillers…  You can find her on cloud 9.

Phew, what a week.  Some of you may have heard the drama around here, but I want to explain the whole story just in case we haven’t been able to talk to y’all.  So, here’s what happened:  I got home from work on Wednesday to find Melissa sprawled out on our driveway.  Apparently she was coming down the stairs outside of our apartment to meet me.   We were running late for dinner plans and she turned her ankle at the bottom of the stairs causing her to fall onto the curb and out onto the pavement.  I found her thankfully with a neighbor as she was losing consciousness (she seems to shut down as a response to pain).  She came to after we carried her into the apartment and onto the couch.  I then realized how bad her wrist looked and how much pain she was in.  We had to get to the hospital.

Luckily, there was no wait in the emergency room at the small hospital down the road.  After getting admitted and waiting a few minutes, the doctor approved a heafty dose of morphine.  She then started to relax and cracked a few jokes.  That made me feel better… I was pretty scared up to this point.  They found a distal radius fracture after a series of X-Rays.  The screens showed that the bones were compressed and were causing a lot of swelling and lack of feeling in her hand.  They then injected a large dose of anesthetic into her wrist and connected her to a contraption that looked a lot like a rack with chinese finger traps attached to it.  As they set the bones, I then proceeded to ask all sorts of probing questions… isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when the doctor is torturing your wife?  Of course it did help to distract her from the pain.  She got back at me when she asked for a puppy when everything was said and done. We got a prescription for heavy painkillers and went home.

After seeing the doctor Friday and reviewing another series of X-Rays, we found out that she not only broke her radius near her wrist; she broke it near her elbow as well.  We also found out that the fracture near her wrist goes through the joint and had shifted after being set on Wednesday.  The only course of action to prevent serious joint problems, such as arthritis, is surgery.  So, Tuesday morning Melissa will be going into surgery to have a metal plate attached to her bone.  She will be staying until Wednesday morning.

We appreciate everyone’s thoughts and prayers and I’ll do my best to post an update after the operation.  And yes, I’ve decided that our next place will not have stairs.